Melismatic
by Saf Dawnheart
Summary: Music of the heart. For the iPod Shuffle Challenge. — Jay/Willow, Crow/Feather, Lion/Heather, Leaf/Hawk, Ash/Squirrel, Holly/Breeze, Storm/Tawny, Dove/Rain, Gray/Silver, Berry/Holly.


Wow. My first time back into the fandom for a while. xD Of course, half the people who were here when I was writing for this fandom have either left FFN or moved on to other fandoms, and for a while I did the same. But then I picked up my old copy of Midnight. Now I'm re-addicted to this series. -shifty eyes-

Anywhozer, this is another 10 song challenge, but with an eensy little twist: each "oneshot" has a different pairing/set of characters, with the exceptions of the HollyBreeze and HollyBerry one. (I couldn't resist, since I ship both SO FREAKING HARD and yes I know Holly and Breeze are related. That doesn't stop me AT ALL xD) So without further ado, please enjoy this collection of oneshots. :)

WARNING: MILD FOURTH APPRENTICE SPOILERS

**_Disclaimer- _**If I owned Warriors, you can bet that Ashfur would not have been evil and Jay/Holly/Lion would have STAYED Bramble/Squirrel spawn. -grumble grumble-

* * *

**Jayfeather/Willowshine  
"Blind" - Lifehouse**

She hates him, everything about him: the arrogance clear in his sightless blue eyes; the way his dark gray fur bristles on reflex to the slightest indicting comment; the way he replaced Hollypaw, _her best friend,_ in the post of medicine cat apprentice. Willowpaw hates the way Jaypaw seems to characterize her, as nothing but a useless she-cat who can't do anything more than pity him for his blindness.

But - how in StarClan's name is she _supposed_ to react, at knowing that, for whatever reason, StarClan has denied Jaypaw the right given to _all Clan cats_, the right to see colors and shapes and everything along with it?

At times Willowpaw's seemingly staunch hatred wavers at times in favor of this odd sympathy: when she's sitting in the medicine cat's den with Mothwing, sorting herbs and wondering why Leafpool must take the young apprentice on all of StarClan's journeys instead of her own mentor; when she's sitting at the Moonpool and picking her way to the side as far away from that prickly ThunderClan nuisance as possible; when she's sitting at the Gathering and catches his eyes staring widely at something in the distance - that strange feeling of empathy and pity catches her heart and won't let go. And she hates that she can't decide, can't _understand_ what she feels.

But as she sits at this Gathering, surrounded by the whole of RiverClan and darting frantically about to try and take care of everyone at once - _stupid Twoleg kits, that territory belongs to _us - she spots the object of her frustration sitting at the edge of the clearing. And as his sightless eyes stare all but blankly into hers, Willowpaw realizes that he understands everything.

**Crowfeather/Feathertail  
"A Thousand Miles" - Vanessa Carlton**

Crowpaw growls under his breath as he skirts around a container of Twoleg waste, and Feathertail fights back a small smile and a _mrrow_ of laughter as she watches his disgust. "You'd think they could find another way to dispose of this," he complains, narrowing his amber eyes and wrinkling his nose at the stench.

Feathertail shakes her head patiently; her brother's words - about how this impossible apprentice could be WindClan's chosen one is beyond him, beyond Brambleclaw and Squirrelpaw and Tawnypelt as well - come back to her, echoing in her mind; but she shakes them off. She knows she can get through to Crowpaw if she tries; even the most prickly facade fades eventually, and she's certain Crowpaw is no exception. "How do you think the Twolegs feel when they find our dirt in the forest?" she points out quietly.

Crowpaw opens his mouth, as if to object; then hisses under his breath and glowers at the ground, as though realizing she's right.

They walk on a few more heartbeats; then the sound of Crowpaw's voice reaches Feathertail's ears, and the uncharacteristic uncertainty in his voice makes her halt in her tracks and stare at him.

"Do you think we'll be able to do this?" he murmurs.

Feathertail can only gaze at him sympathetically, feeling a growing glow of commiseration within her for him. It hits her, then, how uncertain his part in this journey is: called away, right before he was about to become a warrior; awkward in the presence of cats from other Clans; not sure whether or not to trust them. She remembers vaguely that he hasn't even had his saltwater sign yet, and knows that that uncertainty can't help matters.

Impulsively, she leans over and touches her nose to his ear, making him jolt in surprise. He smells like wind and rain and bitterness.

"We'll be fine," she says softly. "StarClan are watching over us."

She continues on, leaving him looking after her in shock and growing anxiety and, oddly, warmth.

**Lionblaze/Heathertail  
"All Again for You" - We the Kings**

The first thing he noticed about her were her eyes.

All he really remembers at that Gathering is trailing after Mousepaw - Mouse_whisker_ now, he corrects himself - thinking irritably of how obviously smitten he was with that RiverClan apprentice Minnowpaw, and then they were coming upon that group of WindClan cats and _oh._

He does remember thinking her name was accurate, because of the color of her eyes. _Heatherpaw._

The second thing he noticed about her was the way her eyes always lit up when he was nearby.

They shouldn't have started meeting at all, he has to admit, but he couldn't, _didn't want to_ stop seeing her. He supposes at the time it was nothing more than a kithood crush - at least that's what Hollyleaf seemed to dismiss it as - but at the time he could only think _what does she know, she's never been in love like this._

He was so _naive_ back then.

The third thing he noticed about her was the way she made him forsake his Clan loyalty for her.

This was what made him stop. What made him realize.

And the fourth thing Lionblaze notices about her, even as he spits and snarls at a shocked-looking Jaypaw that he will _never_ go to WindClan, to the tunnels that hold so much darkness and pained memories for him, is the way she had the uncanny ability to make him fall in love with her.

But at this point it's too late.

**Leafpool/Hawkfrost**  
**"Season" - The Academy Is**

Three quarter-moons have passed now, since Leafpool found her father lying half-conscious in that fox trap and Brambleclaw staring down at his bloodstained dark tabby paws. And the blood-filled lake, and the carcass from which that blood originated, ice-blue eyes glaring sightlessly into the sky in a last caricature of a sneer at death.

_Hawkfrost._

Leafpool thinks it's stupid, to hope she'll see his starry shape smirking at her in the ranks of StarClan next time she visits the Moonpool. After everything he did, all the schemes he made? More than likely he was in the same dark forest as Tigerstar. Just thinking about that dark place makes Leafpool shudder and she wipes it from her mind.

Yet why can't she get rid of the mental image of Tigerstar's prodigal son as easily as she can the mental image of the place that awaits villainous cats when they die?

Leafpool thinks she'll go there herself, sometimes. When the loneliness and memories of Crowfeather's love and what they could have had and wondering what Yellowfang meant about walking a rare path for a medicine at means gets to be too much. After all, Leafpool has sinned, she's fallen in love with another warrior, why shouldn't she share that damnation?

And why does she keep wanting to imagine Crowfeather's dark gray fur as a dark brown tabby, those amber eyes freezing into ice-blue, that lean shape growing stockier, more broad-shouldered - to the point that _Hawkfrost_ is winding his sleek shape around her and purring sweet nothings into her ear?

**Ashfur/Squirrelflight  
"Here (In Your Arms)" - Hellogoodbye**

He shouldn't feel smug. He really shouldn't. After all, Brambleclaw is Ashfur's friend as well as Squirrelflight's; his happiness at being with her is mixed with sympathy every time he sees the stark amber gaze of the cat who has lost her, after being through so much with her.

But at the same time, Ashfur loves that Squirrelflight has chosen _him,_ of all cats, to be with after her falling-out with Brambleclaw. The gray warrior still remembers the day the ginger she-cat flounced up to him - just after they had reached the new camp and were still trying to get their bearings - and asked him, albeit a little huffily, if she could sleep beside him that night. He was ecstatic; at last she was beginning to respond to the longing glances that, he knew, he had plagued her with since her return from her first illustrious journey.

Yes, Ashfur is friends with Brambleclaw - maybe not as much as he used to be, because as far as the dark tabby probably saw it, Ashfur stole his everything from him, right when they needed to stay together - hold _ThunderClan_ together - the most. But when Squirrelflight approaches Ashfur - and he tries to ignore the pain that tempers her beautiful green eyes, since she had just arrived to Ashfur after talking angrily to Brambleclaw - he feels that surge of warmth, that feeling that everything will be all right as long as she's near.

Yes, there's no place else he'd rather be than with her right now.

**Hollyleaf/Breezepelt  
"Rebirthing" - Skillet**

Breezepelt wants to cast aside any reservations he may have about Hollyleaf's death. He really does. But all the same, his heart contracts when Firestar delivers that horrid, grief-striking news at the Gathering, and the WindClan warrior's temper begins to bubble angrily at the low murmur of _relief_ among his stupid Clanmates.

"Hollyleaf was killed."

_Hollyleaf. Oh, Hollyleaf._

It's sick, Breezepelt knows. Now that the true parentage of Hollyleaf and her brothers had been revealed, exposed to the world with all the horror and nausea-inducing tendencies of an oozing sore - ironically by Hollyleaf herself; is that how StarClan punished her, Breezepelt wonders; by smothering out the last of her knowledge? - he knows, now, their true relationship.

_His half-sister._ The she-cat he felt so much fascination for, had brooded over for so many nights now, is - was, he reminds himself heavily - his _half-sister._

More irony: she was the only one of them all he felt a sense of kinship with. Jayfeather, Lionblaze - Breezepelt really could have cared less about them. It was their - his too - beautiful, dark, ambitious sister that had drawn the WindClan cat's attention and held it.

He'd thought they'd gotten close to something, that day when they had worked on training the Tribe kits together in preparation for the fight against those rogues. He had actually made an effort at a playful remark, after tackling her and warning the kits _this is an example of how_ not_ to do it_ - and Hollyleaf had narrowed her eyes and flicked her ears in that annoyed look he knew so well.

And then they had softened, with indulgence and something more within those grassy orbs.

Orbs that were now, undoubtedly, dulled in death. What they could have possibly had - sibling relationship or otherwise - is gone. Never to return.

**Stormfur/Tawnypelt  
"White Horse" - Taylor Swift**

Maybe we could have had something. I was a stupid, moronic she-cat - something I hate even thinking about - to think that when you kept bringing me prey after that StarClan-forsaken rat bit me, it meant something. You had gently scolded me to just take the food and eat it, it didn't matter where it had come from - and at that very moment, I had looked at you not as a warrior of an enemy Clan, but as a friend, something that was hard to come by for me. Even in ShadowClan, I had barely anyone to talk to or share my thoughts with, unless one counts Russetfur's caustic remarks.

But, I was foolish enough to think, perhaps this journey could change that. Perhaps you - Stormfur - could change that.

And then we arrived at the Tribe, and your attention was swept away from me like the waterfall nearly swept all of us into death's furious current. This current, it turned out, was a pretty young prey-hunter, as the Tribe had dubbed those idiotic divisions. Brook.

I thought we'd had something. But I was wrong.

I hate myself for getting even that far.

When Feathertail died, do you even know the first thing I did? I went toward you. I wanted to comfort you, to draw comfort from seeing the possibility of your pain being healed. But what did you do? You went to _her._ You drew comfort from her sharp, cold Tribe scent, not my ShadowClan scent; her brown tabby fur, not my tortoiseshell pelt.

For that, and that alone, my heart broke.

No more, though. I will never succumb to the foolish hormones again. It's what's good for this journey, after all.

...Right?

**Dovepaw/Rainstorm  
"Currents" - Dashboard Confessional**

"Rainstorm!"

I jerk in surprise as the sharp voice of my sister, Otterheart, rends my ears and effectively tears me out of my thoughts. The dark brown she-cat eyes me chidingly. "Honestly, do you still have mud in your ears?" she demands. "Leopardstar called us to go on patrol with Mistyfoot, and you haven't left the warriors' den."

"I'll be out soon, I promise," I say half-heartedly. As my sister snorts and turns away with a growl of _you'd better,_ my thoughts return to what has been plaguing me for the past few days. The thought of soft, kit-like gray fur, and emerald eyes. The name attached to those features returns to me, the name that ThunderClan warrior Lionblaze had called her.

_Dovepaw._

_Stop being stupid!_ my mind barks. _You don't even know her, she's so young, she's from another Clan for StarClan's sake! Wha - are you listening to me?!_

The incredulity of that last thought, schizophrenic as it seems, has seeped over from real life, as Otterheart lets out a frustrated cry at the sight of me bounding out of the warriors' den, right past her.

I keep running till I reach the lakeshore, the place where RiverClan can look across and see the thick copses of ThunderClan territory. Otterheart always avoids this place avidly. I don't know why, but I'm pretty sure it has to do with a ginger warrior there. Thornclaw's his name, I think.

All thoughts of my sister's not-so-secret little crush vanish when I suddenly see a speck of pale gray greet my eyes from the other side of the lake. For the briefest of moments I want to leap up and cry out. _Dovepaw, Dovepaw, do you remember me, I'm that stupid RiverClan warrior you caught struggling in the mud, I know it's stupid, can we just -_

But she's gone before my thoughts can form some type of coherency.

**Graystripe/Silverstream  
"All You Wanted" - Michelle Branch**

Silverstream padded along the riverbanks, dark green eyes narrowed in search of prey. Behind her, the sounds of Stonefur and Shadepaw, with the former's deep voice rumbling out questions and the latter's feminine tone answering eagerly, seem to vanish behind her. Ordinarily Silverstream would be mingling with her best friend's brother and his apprentice, smirking and twitching her ears in amusement at the apprentice's obvious crush on her mentor; but oddly, today, Crookedstar's daughter feels like she needs to scout ahead alone.

Oddly, she finds her gaze drawn to the river, which is still frozen and, due to that, fallow of fish. Silverstream's belly rumbles in annoyance at the thought. But that's not the only thing that's irritating her and making her normally social demeanor so reticent.

It's _him _- that stupid ThunderClan warrior who "decided" to take a swim the other day. Silverstream doesn't know why, but she can't get him out of her head.

_Mousebrain,_ she thinks to herself, _it's impossible to care about someone you just met._

Yet maybe it is.

And maybe she wants him to care for her back.

**Hollyleaf/Berrynose  
"One Day" - Trading Yesterday**

Hollyleaf's muscles bunched in preparation to pounce on the unsuspecting squirrel digging for nuts before her. As her hind legs flexed, a crashing sound greeted her ears, and the squirrel jerked upward in terror and dashed away.

The black she-cat straightened, let out a snarl as she drew one paw over her ear and licked it a couple of times. A familiar scent, a scent whose owner she loathed, wafted across her senses and she groaned aloud.

"Ooh, yikes. Better luck next time," a masculine voice admonished tauntingly, just before Hollyleaf turned her head and hissed as long, creamy fur and mocking blue eyes made themselves known to her.

"Shut up, mousebrain," she muttered pathetically, glowering at the ground and hoping, somehow, that the heat of her glare would somehow transfer to Berrynose's fur through the ground and singe his pelt.

"Sounds like somebody's got a burr in their pelt," he teased, and swept away, flicking the tip of his tail rather teasingly over her nose as he did so.

"A burr named Berrynose!" Hollyleaf spat after him. "Why are you following me, anyway?"

Berrynose then did something she would never have expected from such an arrogant piece of fox dung: He hesitated.

Hollyleaf blinked. This was serious.

"What?" she prompted a little more gently, despite the inquisitive being within her that was screaming for answers.

Berrynose turned to look at her, and for some reason, her heart began to pound at the intensity in his dark blue eyes.

He opened his mouth to speak, and Hollyleaf found herself leaning toward him in anticipation.

"Nothing," he suddenly said, turning away again. "I was just going to tell you that I thought I heard your brother and Ashfur having a not-so-friendly little scuffle in the training hollow. Just to let you know."

He left before Hollyleaf could say anything else, leaving her there with her confusion as to her own feelings.

* * *

My personal faves would have to be the Holly/Breeze, Leaf/Hawk, and Crow/Feather ones. Yes, I know Leafpool hated Hawkfrost with the passion of a thousand suns, and Breezepelt is OOC, and Crowfeather is probably OOC, but hey, fans can dream, right?

Hopefully this will herald my return to this fandom. If so, hasta la pasta!


End file.
